Go! I entreat you, go home!" She retired up the stage--no, no; she withdrew to the other end of the room--and burst into the most becoming of all human tears, theatrical tears.

Impulsive Iris hastened to comfort the personification of self-sacrifice, the model of all that was most unselfish in female submission.

"For shame! for shame!" she whispered, as she passed Mountjoy.
Beaten again by Mrs.Vimpany--with no ties of relationship to justify resistance to Miss Henley; with two women against him, entrenched behind the privileges of their sex--the one last sacrifice of his own feelings, in the interests of Iris, that Hugh could make was to control the impulse which naturally urged him to leave the house.

In the helpless position in which he had now placed himself, he could only wait to see what course Mrs.Vimpany might think it desirable to take.
Would she request him, in her most politely malicious way, to bring his visit to an end?
No: she looked at him--hesitated--directed a furtive glance towards the view of the street from the window--smiled mysteriously--and completed the sacrifice of her own feelings in these words: "Dear Miss Henley, let me help you to pack up." Iris positively refused.
"No," she said, "I don't agree with Mr.Mountjoy.My father leaves it to me to name the day when we meet.

I hold you, my dear, to our engagement--I don't leave an affectionate friend as I might leave a stranger." Even if Mr.Mountjoy communicated his discoveries to Miss Henley, on the way home, there would be no danger now of her believing him.